Rules of Prey

small.” She held it eight inches from her nose, peering at it.
Necessity has no law
As Augustine descries her,
So the maddog’s brought to earth
With the help of Nun the Wiser.
    She gasped, then started to laugh, throwing her head back and letting it roll out. “This is terrible, ” she said at last. “Augustine is whirling in his grave.”
    “It’s not that bad,” Lucas said with a bit of frost. “In fact . . .”
    “Lucas, it’s awful. ” She started laughing again, and finally Lucas began laughing with her. When she stopped, she brushed tears from her eyes and said, “I’ll treasure it forever. I don’t know what my sisters will think when they find it on my body . . .”
    “ They can send it to Mother Teresa,” Lucas suggested.
     
    They talked as old friends: of phony fainting spells during the rosary after school, of the boy who admitted in fourthgrade that he didn’t believe in God. His name was Gene, that’s all they could remember.
    “Are you okay?” she asked after a while.
    “I think so.”
    “And your relationship . . .”
    “Is doing well, thank you. I want to marry her, but she won’t.”
    “Officially, I’m appalled. Unofficially, I suspect she must be quite an intelligent woman. You are definitely a high-risk proposition . . . . What about Carla Ruiz?”
    “Gone to Chicago. She has a new friend.”
    “The nightmares?”
    “Getting worse.”
    “Oh, no.”
    “She’s seeing a counselor.”
     
    And later still.
    “You feel no qualms about Louis Vullion’s death?”
    “None. Should I?”
    “I had wondered at the circumstances,” she said.
    Lucas pondered for a moment. “Elle. If you want to know everything, I’ll tell you everything.”
    It was her turn to ponder. She turned to the big window, a black silhouette against the snow that drove against the glass.
    Finally she shook her head, and he noticed she was clutching the medallion. “No. I don’t want to know everything. I’m not a confessor. And I will pray for you and for Louis Vullion. But as for knowing . . .”
    She turned back, a tiny, grim smile on her face. “ . . . I’m content to be Nun the Wiser.”
    •  •  •
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